Category Archives: USA

Neocon CIP launches campaign against domestic violence

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Pipes and CIP

“Muslim spiritual leaders could be denounced publicly by their own community as part of a campaign to expose imams whose silence on domestic abuse is leading to women being burnt, lashed and raped in the name of Islam.

“Muslim scholars are to present the Government with the names of imams who are alleged by members of their own communities to have refused to help abused women. Imams are also accused of refusing to speak out against domestic abuse in their sermons because they fear losing their clerical salaries and being sacked for broaching a ‘taboo’ subject.

“Some of Britain’s most prominent moderate imams and female Muslim leaders have backed the campaign, urging the Home Office to vet more carefully Islamic spiritual leaders coming to Britain to weed out hardliners.”

Times, 26 September 2008

Read on, and you find that the organisation behind this campaign is the so-called Center for Islamic Pluralism, which was founded by ex-Trotskyist-turned-neocon Stephen Schwartz with financial assistance from Daniel Pipes.

In the UK the CIP has precisely one identifiable member – Irfan al-Alawi. In other words, it represents nothing at all in the Muslim community. So it would certainly be interesting to hear which of “Britain’s most prominent moderate imams and female Muslim leaders” are backing Alawi’s campaign, which is cynically using the serious issue of domestic violence to promote the CIP’s cranky obsession with “Wahhabism” and discredit genuinely representative Muslim organisations that reject Schwartz’s pro-imperialist politics.

Who is behind Relentless, Obsession and The Third Jihad?

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Obsession (2)“The venom created by the films ‘Relentless’, and ‘Obsession: Radical Islam’s War With the West’ has been slowly working its way into the hearts and minds of people across the country for a couple of years. Now the same group that brought us these atrocities is coming out with another film ‘The Third Jihad’. These films are only part of what Bob Crane has called a Tsunami of Islamophobia that seems to be rushing in ever higher waves towards the Muslim community in America….

“I know from personal experience over many years of being involved with interfaith dialogue that the views that this film promotes are not the views of all Jewish people, but I also know that those who have been responsible for making this film and for promoting it widely have been primarily Jewish. It truly saddens me that members of a community who should know better and who have experienced a holocaust that resulted at least partially from widespread stereotyping and demonization of Jewish people. I believe that this marginal group within the Jewish community is so blinded by their need to defend the State of Israel at any cost that they do not see the cost of their propaganda to another community.

“They are a marginal group, but they are making a lot of noise. In fact, they are making so much noise that they are drowning out the voices of those in the mainstream Jewish community who have worked so hard with mainstream Muslims and Christians to build bridges of dialogue and work towards peace and justice in this world.”

Sheila Musaji in The American Muslim, 20 September 2008

Nebraska company fires Muslims over Ramadan prayers

Posted on by Bob Pitt

A Grand Island meatpacking plant fired at least 86 workers Friday after they walked off the job amid a dispute over prayers during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, company officials said. But a Muslim leader and one of the fired workers said 150 Muslims lost their jobs.

JBS Swift & Co. spokeswoman Tamara Smid confirmed 86 firings late Friday, saying the employees were terminated earlier that day for repeatedly leaving work without authorization. She would not give any other details, including whether anyone else had been fired.

Mohamed Rage, who leads the Omaha Somali-American Community Organization, said 80 workers were thrown out after an altercation late Thursday. He says when they tried to return for their shift Friday, they were fired, along with 70 others.

Associated Press, 19 September 2009

Posted in USA

US congressman proposes anti-Sharia law

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Tom-TancredoAmid disturbing revelations that the verdicts of Islamic Sharia courts are now legally binding in civil cases in the United Kingdom, U.S. Representative Tom Tancredo (R-Littleton) moved quickly today to introduce legislation designed to protect the United States from a similar fate.

According to recent news reports, a new network of Sharia courts in a half-dozen major cities in the U.K. have been empowered under British law to adjudicate a wide variety of legal cases ranging from divorces and financial disputes to those involving domestic violence.

“This is a case where truth is truly stranger than fiction,” said Tancredo. “Today the British people are learning a hard lesson about the consequences of massive, unrestricted immigration.”

“When you have an immigration policy that allows for the importation of millions of radical Muslims, you are also importing their radical ideology – an ideology that is fundamentally hostile to the foundations of western democracy – such as gender equality, pluralism, and individual liberty,” said Tancredo. “The best way to safeguard America against the importation of the destructive effects of this poisonous ideology is to prevent its purveyors from coming here in the first place.”

Tancredo’s bill, dubbed the “Jihad Prevention Act,” would bar the entry of foreign nationals who advocate Sharia law. In addition, the legislation would make the advocacy of Sharia law by radical Muslims already in the United States a deportable offense.

Tom Tancredo press release, 18 September 2008

US factory sacks Muslim workers for praying

Posted on by Bob Pitt

JBS Swift & Co protestTensions have flared between Somali workers and officials at a Colorado meatpacking plant over when employees can break for prayer during the Muslim observance of Ramadan.

Religious discord between U.S. factories and Muslim workers is nothing new, but a spokesman for the D.C.-based Council on American-Islamic Relations said he’s never seen a conflict escalate to the point it has at the JBS Swift & Co. meatpacking plant in Greeley. “Usually in these cases we’re able to come to an amicable solution,” CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper said Thursday.

The conflict in Greeley began Sept. 5, when about 220 workers, according to Swift estimates, walked out during the evening shift, blaming the company’s refusal to allow their breaks to coincide with sunset so they could pray.

Swift spokeswoman Tamara Smid said 101 workers were fired, but United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7 spokesman Manny Gonzales said the number was as high as 150, based on what workers told union officials. The union filed grievances of discrimination and wrongful termination against the company Friday, Gonzales said.

Associated Press, 12 September 2008

Pro-McCain group dumping 28 million terror scare DVDs in swing states

Posted on by Bob Pitt

ObsessionThis week, 28 million copies of a right-wing, terror propaganda DVD are being mailed and bundled in newspaper deliveries to voters in swing states.

The 60-minute DVDs, titled Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West, are landing on doorsteps in a campaign coinciding with the 7th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. Funding is coming from a New York-based group called the Clarion Fund, a shadowy outfit whose financial backers are unclear.

The program was originally shown on Fox News in the days leading up to the 2006 mid-term elections, and far right-wing activist David Horowitz toured the country screening the film on college campuses during 2007. Mainstream religious groups have called Obsession biased and divisive. It cuts between scenes of Nazi rallies and footage of Muslim children being encouraged to become suicide bombers.

The DVDs were distributed last weekend in national editions of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal within selected swing states. These included Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Colorado, Iowa, Florida, Wisconsin, Nevada, New Hampshire and Virginia.

Huffington Post, 12 September 2008

High Court gives Labour an extra week

Posted on by Bob Pitt

High Court gives Labour an extra weekBy Louise Nousratpour

Morning Star, 30 August 2008

LEGAL rights campaigners accused Britain on Friday of covering up US authorities’ “criminal act of kidnapping and torturing” Guantanamo prisoner Binyam Mohamed.

The High Court allowed the Foreign Office a further week to reconsider its refusal to disclose secret information about the British resident’s detention and torture.

Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones handed down their second ruling on the case of the Ethiopian national. Mr Mohamed argues that the material supports his case that the evidence against him was extracted through torture.

The Ethiopian national was arrested in Pakistan in 2002 and has been held at the US concentration camp in Cuba for the past four years. He now faces a US military trial for terrorism offences and possibly the death penalty if found guilty.

Mr Mohamed’s legal team argue that the material is vital for his case and could prove his innocence. But Foreign Secretary David Miliband says that he has been “advised” that disclosure of the material would cause “significant damage to national security of the United Kingdom.”

The “advice” came in the form of a threat from the US State Department, claiming that any such move would cause “serious and lasting damage to the US-UK intelligence-sharing relationship and, thus, the national security of the UK.”

In a statement on Friday, legal action charity Reprieve revealed that the High Court judges had decided that Mr Miliband’s secret submission to court was “insufficiently supported in that he had not taken into sufficient account the torture suffered by Binyam.”

Director Clive Stafford Smith said: “The British government has the nerve to pretend that the British public interest is best served by covering up America’s criminal act of kidnapping and torturing him.

“It effectively says that a British resident’s right to a fair trial is less important than avoiding embarrassing the Bush administration and we’ll just gloss over the fact that he was tortured.

“But British national security cannot ever be enhanced by torture.”

Continue reading →

MI5 colluded with torture of Guantánamo prisoner

Posted on by Bob Pitt

Binyam MohamedMI5 participated in the unlawful interrogation of a British resident now held in Guantánamo Bay, the high court found yesterday in a judgment raising serious questions about the conduct of Britain’s security and intelligence agencies.

One MI5 officer was so concerned about incriminating himself that he initially declined to answer questions from the judges even in private, the judgment reveals. Though the judges say “no adverse conclusions” should be drawn by the MI5 officer’s plea against self-incrimination, they disclose that the officer, Witness B, was questioned about alleged war crimes under the international criminal court act, including torture. The full evidence surrounding Witness B’s evidence, and the judges’ findings, remain secret.

The MI5 officer interrogated the British resident, Binyam Mohamed, while he was being held in Pakistan in 2002. Mohamed, 30, an Ethiopian national, was later secretly rendered to Morocco, where he says was tortured by having his penis cut with a razor blade. The US subsequently flew him to Afghanistan and he was transferred to Guantánamo Bay in September 2004 where he remains.

In a passage which appears to contradict previous assurances by MI5, Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones concluded: “The conduct of the security service facilitated interviews by or on behalf of the United States when [Mohamed] was being detained by the United States incommunicado and without access to a lawyer.” They added: “Under the law of Pakistan, that detention was unlawful.”

Asked last month about unrelated allegations involving detainees held in Pakistan, the Home Office said on behalf of MI5: “All security service staff have an awareness of the Human Rights Act 1998, and are fully committed to complying with the requirements of the law when working in the UK and overseas.”

It added that the security and intelligence agencies “do not participate in, solicit, encourage or condone the use of torture or inhumane or degrading treatment”.

Guardian, 22 August 2008